Prince silences valet with court injunction

Prince Charles won a High Court injunction against his personal valet Ken Stronach yesterday, restraining him from making further relevations about his 15 years of service to the Royal Household.

Prince Charles's lawyers said yesterday that Mr Stronach admitted taking photographs of the Prince's Highgrove home bedroom and giving them to the News of the World. He is believed to have received £100,000 for the photographs and his revelations about the affair between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.

Royal officials suggested last night that the valet's admission made it a virtual certainty that he would be sacked.

The controversy seems far from over, however, as Mr Stronach told the prince's private secretary that he "did not recognise statements attributed to him" by the paper. But the News of the World disputed his version of the two-hour conversation with its royal correspondent and stood by its story.

A statement on behalf of the Prince's office said that the inquiry had concluded that "no breach of security has been revealed and no police investigation will be necessary".

In another royal damage limitation move, the Sun newspaper yesterday undertook to return family photographs taken from Mrs Parker Bowles' home after splashing them across eight pages on Monday. The photos included one of her in a bikini, used on the front page, and one of the four-poster bed where it was alleged Prince Charles slept during late-night trysts. The front-page headline, "Charles' nights of sex and wine in Camilla's four-poster", was followed with intimate details of the Prince of Wales' affairs with Mrs Parker Bowles.

Mr and Mrs Parker Bowles, were divorced on Thursday. As part of the action, the family demanded that the £25,000 fee which should have been paid to the source of the photographs go to charity instead.